Making cup cakes at the new job

Making cup cakes at the new job
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

It seems as if Ive been ignoring my blog. Nope just no time. And I really cannot figure out how to post from my phone!.
Ive taken on an additional part time job. As much as I dearly want to make my living as a jewelry artist, right now reality is, it isnt even cutting it as a supplemental income generator.
So I have zero, zilch extra time to do the things that make me happy, and functional. Fortunately my husband does the laundry. Because I seriously have no time right now.
Anyway the extra job is in the bakery at my local Wallyworld. I get to sling bread dough and decorate cup cakes.
Im having fun with the cupcakes, but man, my hand hurts from using icing bags!

I will try to get back on here and post more frequently, even if only to show off what cupcakes I managed to make this week. I do miss making jewelry, but at least my artistic self is being satisfied playing with the colorful icings!

Whats on the bench this week?

cleaning up
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

Right now a lot of space. I've been really having fun making some cute little dragonses, and a lovely steampunk Victorian kraken necklace, but man the work space gets to be a mess fast.

Im trying to improve my work practices so that meant today was clean it up so I have some work area to make more dragonses and more tentacular steampunk goodies.

I also have a load in the kiln right now--I hope it all worked, and I have new copper goodies to show off tomorrow. Dragonses

Lots of vending coming up!

There are a bunch of great upcoming events where I will be vending!

Saturday September 15
Greenway Art Festival
10am to 4pm
Murfreesboro, TN
at Old Fort Park

Sunday September 16
Hendersonville Arts council Summer Music Series
7pm to 9pm
Hendersonville, TN
Monthaven Mansion

Saturday September 29
Arts 'Round The Square
9am to 4pm
Paris, TN
city square, downtown

Saturday October 6
Art in the Park
10am to 5pm
Springfield, TN
J.Travis Price Park

Saturday and Sunday October 27-28
Alabama Renaissance Faire
10am to 6pm Saturday
12pm to 5pm Sunday
Florence, Al
Fountain-On-The-Green, commonly known as Wilson Park

whats on the bench

whats on the bench
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

entirely too many in progress pieces!!

Lets see we are looking at polymer clay for the dragons, and the manta-ray piece that has a few touch up spots then needs to go back in. A copper hair stick, where the stick broke and is being repaired--again, and a few pieces at the bottom that need to be polished, and patina-ed.

Im going to try the LOS on copper with this bunch, and see how that is versus flaming the piece to bring up color.

Oh and the new love of my life, thank you Wanaree for introducing us, Paste Maker. I love that stuff!

Color stage for shooting tutorials

neutral color stage for shooting tutorials
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

I made a stage for shooting tutorials. Its a neutral grey base. I used half a card board box, a plastic tray lots of modge podge and tape.

Tutorial shooting in my future!

And it hides the rest of my desk very well!

Creativity in cake

This past weekend was the progenitor's 50th wedding anniversary (my parents). They had a little shin-dig during their church's social hour. Dad asked for my help in getting cakes prepared. Easy you say? Well not really, you see we are gluten free (for a variety of reasons).

Initially I was going to just coordinate and purchase the baked goods. But that was before I found out the two main GF bakeries in town have basically shut down. One closed, one changed the nature of the business, and no longer offers baking services. So baking cakes was my job.

A few years ago a friend and I started to play around with baking cakes, and decorating them. Over the top decorating. While we worked we had fun and a very steep learning curve, but we didnt care. Our mantra was "what would Duff do?" As we tried to channel Duff from Ace of Cakes.

well this project didn't call for wacked out fondant creations, just some decent decorated cakes. So the plan was purchase the gluten cake, and make the GF cake. That is until I priced them out. Ouch. Im too poor these days to fork over 30 bucks for a sheet cake when box cake mix costs a buck. (Of course the GF mix is $5 a box, but hey Im just so happy it exists!)

 So the plan was spend a chunk of Thurdsay baking, Saturday decorating, Sunday eating. My plan worked well. Thursday morning went quickly. The cakes were 2 layers chocolate and vanilla each. The bake order to minimize contamination was vanilla GF, chocolate GF, chocolate then vanilla. This order also helped me to minimize excessive cleaning.

A dozen eggs, a pound of butter, four boxes of cake mix, 1 can of frosting and an hour and a half later, I had 4 cake slabs. (this is what the cakes looked like by the time I finished Thursday morning). Im well known for NOT cooking, so I was thrilled how easy that part went. Cakes went into cold storage and I went to a Duran Duran concert (Oh heck yes Im going to mention that cause at the end of the show as everyone was leaving there was a white SUV pulling out, and from where that car originated it could only be the band, everyone was getting out of the way and Im thinking its the band! Well it was and John Taylor was in the front seat and I was frozen to the ground gawping at him. He turned around and waved at me!! Hes always been my Duran favorite, so I was thrilled beyond belief--took me back 30 years in giddy!)

So after a thrilling 5 seconds of eye contact, and a long drive home on Saturday it was time to decorate the cakes. As I mentioned I have done the crazy fondant type of decorations before, after all it s simply edible polymer clay as far as my fingers are concerned. But these cakes were going to be simple basic frosting decorations.

 The first cake I did was the gluten cake. I wanted to do a yellow basket weave on the sides but using spray can icing and really not knowing what I was doing resulted in a bright yellow side with fork lines in it. I did manage to get the top ALMOST perfectly smooth.

The GF cake wasn't as tall but I did manage to figure out how to do a basket weave. And I attempted it. it actually came out pretty ok. My dad was impressed at least.

In the end I would say the cakes were a success, they were eaten!

 

As an artist I find it fun to play with different mediums. Maybe thats a problem, in that Im not very pin pointed in what I do. But with some many creative outlets available why be limited?

What's on the bench today?

IMG_9827.jpg
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

A whole lot of "needs to be finished" and these. I got an itch last night to make glow in the dark tentacle beads. So, here they are. Ive managed to squeeze in a small set and an ear cuff. Really no time for this today, as I have grading I *should* be doing, but I just had to have some creation time.